


three sundays

by espressohno



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: (but really not that much), (like literally), Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Begging, Blindfolds, Blood and Violence, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fight Club - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jim Has Issues, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Praise Kink, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-06 21:23:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20513699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espressohno/pseuds/espressohno
Summary: fight club au. Leonard goes to fight club to get his anger out. Jim goes to fight club to get hurt. Leonard realizes this, and decides he doesn't want to hurt Jim anymore, but he doesn't want to stop seeing him, either.really NOT as violent as the tags make it sound, but I figured it's better safe than sorry, so I added a warning for violence--since it is. literally. a fight club. more specific warnings can be found in the notes. but I mostly just wrote this so I'd have an excuse for h/c and aftercare, my two favorite things





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> content warning in the end notes for anyone who is unsure about this fic
> 
> acknowledgements: shoutout to mckirk writer extraordinaire, my new friend, and the reason I marathoned The Boys in one week, @aishahiwatari, for reading the words "mckirk fight club au" and supporting me wholeheartedly, god knows why. my heart goes out to you on this one

There was something in his eyes. Leonard hadn’t ever noticed it before, when he’d seen the kid fight--and he’d seen the kid fight a lot. 

But something was different this time, and maybe it was just because now the two of them were up close and personal, grappling, clinging, hitting, punching--the kid bit him like 30 seconds in which was totally uncalled for--but then they started to lock eyes, and Leonard saw it. Something that rattled him to his core and brought out from deep in his chest one single thought, which was  _ stop, stop, stop this right now _ . 

It had never happened to Leonard before, and he’d been coming here to fight for what, maybe a year now? Ever since he realized AA was doing fuck-all for what people liked to call his  _ hot temper _ , and he learned after a pretty awful bender that alcohol wasn’t gonna cut it, either. Drinking was never really a proper outlet, anyway, he’d known that from the start. And then after two weekends spent feeling bored at some BDSM sex dungeon that didn’t even get him hard half the time, someone pulled him aside--the only other person in the room who didn’t wear leather--and told him about this club. 

That was the ticket, it turned out, as shitty and cliche and alpha-male as the concept was. What Leonard needed, what helped, what took the rage out of his body and let him face another week--hell, sometimes two or three--feeling like a sane person again, was a goddamn  _ fight club _ . 

So he didn’t question it. Until tonight. 

Until he saw that look in the kid’s eyes right as he slammed his fist against the soft flesh underneath his ribcage. Leonard never broke bones, as a rule, never twisted anything and never hit places that could cause trouble for the joints. He was a doctor, damn it, and even if he was causing someone pain on purpose he was sure as hell going to be responsible about it. 

His fist collided with the guy’s torso and he let out a harsh breath, like a sigh, and his eyes snapped open and he looked up at Leonard and in a second Leonard wished he hadn’t done it, like all of a sudden he didn’t want to hurt him, here in this alleyway at 4 am on a Sunday morning where everyone came  _ explicitly _ to hurt each other. He stood up. 

As quickly as that vulnerability, that raw, real, whatever-it-was in his eyes had appeared, it was gone when Leonard backed up, replaced with irritation that crinkled between his eyebrows and made his big light eyes look a little less naive (but only a little.)

“What are you doing,” he gritted out, and Leonard wasn’t looking, couldn’t look away from the man he’d just tackled to the concrete a minute ago, but everyone standing around them was probably getting confused, too. “I didn’t tap out.”

“I don’t want to fight you,” Leonard said, and yeah, that made him really angry for some reason. He glared up at him for another beat before pushing himself up from the ground. He was mad, and he was trying to get them started again, but it didn’t work on Leonard. Because even with his scrapes and bruises--from last week, he guessed, Leonard never would have gone for his face, he didn’t do that--the dark circles under his eyes and the wiry muscles on his arms and showing through his sweat-damp t shirt, Leonard had seen that look in his eyes and he couldn’t shake how vulnerable the kid had to be, underneath it all, to look at him like that. How lost. 

It wasn’t like Leonard was the epitome of healthy fucking coping mechanisms, but he didn’t want to be a part of this. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep when he got home if he carried on with this fight letting this kid use him for his own self-harm. 

And the kid sure didn’t like that at all. He surged at Leonard as soon as he found his balance again and Leonard dodged him fluidly. 

“Come on you fucker,” he spat out, “you coward. Hit me again.”

But Leonard didn’t want to, not again, not after the pang of guilt from that last one which he still hadn’t been able to shake. He discovered, though, that dodging every one of his attempts to keep fighting turned out to be almost as satisfying as the real thing. So he kept going, until his partner had exhausted every taunt he could think of, until he was panting with how hard he kept trying to throw himself towards Leonard, until he missed him again and lost his balance, fell backwards onto his ass right in the middle of a handful of spectators, who all laughed. And the look on his face this time made Leonard feel guilty all over again, because the hard line of his mouth and the crease between his eyebrows just barely hid the fact that he was mortified. 

“Fuck you,” was all he said, low enough that nobody could even hear it, really, but Leonard had been watching him so closely that he knew the shape of the words coming out of his mouth. And then the kid wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared down at the ground between his feet, and Leonard let out the breath he must have been holding. 

He decided it was time to go home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for the first chapter: jim and leonard DO fight, there are references to punching, biting, public humiliation


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> go to end notes for cw! 
> 
> here's the aftercare i promised. well, the first chapter of it. chapter 3 is gonna be full of it, too

He didn’t come every week. His attendance usually depended on a few factors, like whether or not he had his daughter for the weekend, or if he picked up an extra shift at the hospital, or if his injuries from his last fight needed extra time to heal. Leonard knew how ridiculous it was to begin with, and how reckless, but it really did help, so he tried to be as responsible as he could about the fact that he went to fucking  _ fight club _ . 

Evidently some people were not as cautious as he was. One of those people being the kid he’d fought with a few weeks ago. Leonard arrived a little late, stood at the back of the crowd, and even from this angle, above the heads of a few other members, could tell that the guy had been coming  _ every  _ week. He had bruises upon bruises, cuts that didn’t get time to heal before they were opened up again, and a glint in his eye like coming to get the shit kicked out of him every week  _ still _ wasn’t enough. 

Everyone here  _ liked _ to fight, that was why any of them showed up, but he fought more like he didn’t know how to do anything else, like the only place he knew how to be in was at the end of somebody’s fist. It was harder to watch after what had happened between the two of them, after Leonard had seen, for just a second, the real, genuine vulnerability, the hurt, underneath all of his aggression. Leonard had thought it was just his own instincts that made him end the fight after that, but apparently he just didn’t want to see this kid fight at all. 

He almost left early because of it, because standing there and watching him get hurt really wasn’t helping his mood one bit, except the realization that he would leave, and the guy would continue to get hurt afterwards, kept him there, standing at the back of the crowd, watching the fight like he couldn’t bear to look away.

And he wished he could, because the fight was bad. Whoever he’d paired up with tonight was fighting dirty, being  _ completely _ irresponsible, and just downright being an asshole, hitting him in the face, twisting his limbs. Leonard was all but waiting to hear a bone crack, and trying to stay alert enough to intervene when he did. They finally started to cool down without any broken bones, though, even though there were a handful of close calls, in Leonard’s medical opinion. He was starting to feel relieved that the kid had made it through, and a little bit confused at himself for even caring about this person he didn’t know, when he missed it. The guy said something, or made a face, or--something. And then a startled yelp when he was grabbed by the back of his jacket, and then his head was slammed, face first, against the asphalt. 

There was no crack, but there was a lot of blood when he lifted his face off the ground, and a hush that swept across the crowd at the sight, and Leonard knew in a second that the asshole had broken his nose. 

It didn’t kill the mood completely, of course. The air was a little bit stiff as the kid peeled himself up off the ground, but only until the next pair-up came forward. Leonard didn’t care about seeing another fight, or about being in one, for that matter. He spent the rest of the meeting staring at him, at the blood dripping through his fingers as he cradled his nose. It felt like hours before they finally called it a day, and Leonard didn’t even have to think about it--he was following that fucked-up kid with a broken nose, chasing after him before he even realized what he was supposed to say when he finally caught up with him. 

“Kid, wait.” Leonard found him after everyone cleared out into the light of almost-dawn, managed to stop him before he stepped off the curb to cross the street. “Where do you think you’re going.”

The guy blinked at him, eyes wide and brow furrowed, like he didn’t even know who Leonard was, let alone why the hell Leonard was talking to him right now.  _ Taking the rules of Fight Club a little too seriously _ , Leonard figured. 

“Home?” he offered, voice dry like Leonard’s question had been entirely stupid. 

“You need to go to a hospital,” Leonard said, and gestured to his still-bleeding nose. 

He scoffed, wiping the blood from his upper lip with his hand. 

“I’m fine.”

“ _ Fine my ass _ it looks broken, damn it!”

“So I’ll put some ice on it and read a WebMD article.” He slapped a hand against Leonard’s shoulder and--jesus christ, it was the same hand he just used to wipe the blood off of his face. Leonard tried not to get carried away thinking about that, though, because, more importantly, this kid had a broken nose, and that wasn’t even the only place where he was bleeding right now, and if Leonard didn’t get this guy to a hospital he was just going to go home and do nothing and come back in a week for more, no doubt. 

Leonard grabbed for that arm before it drew away completely, gripping his bicep where he was pretty sure he hadn’t been injured tonight, and he flinched just slightly. 

“I’m taking you to a hospital.”

He scoffed again, smiling out into the empty street, but it was less believable this time. 

“I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”

“You gave me no choice but to worry about it, kid,” Leonard griped, pulling him towards the direction of his car. “Showing up here with unhealed injuries like you’re trying to get beat within an inch of your life--”

“I said _ I’m fine! _ ” he snapped, jerking his arm away from Leonard and cringing at the pain in his whole body. Leonard saw it, in his face, a look that he’d seen a hundred times before in ER patients. A special kind of fear over going to the hospital, usually coming from someone with a long medical record, someone who maybe went to hospitals quite a lot, growing up. And it broke his heart a little bit, not just because he was a doctor. 

Leonard held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, alright,” he said, trying not to be assertive like he had been before, to keep him from running away. “I won’t make you go to the hospital, okay?”

That primal, instinctive fear slowly drained out of his face as he stared back at Leonard, still on the curb next to him, like he was _ actually  _ going to hear him out. Leonard watched his hands slowly unclench, his shoulders slump just a little bit, the color come back into his face behind the blood and cuts and bruises. If he’d kept pressuring him, Leonard realized, he would have had a panic attack. 

“Just…” he sighed, “your nose looks really bad, and the pain’s not gonna get any better, trust me. You can’t just sleep it off. It’ll get worse.”

“What are you, a doctor?”

“Yeah, actually,” Leonard said, “Look, I--I don’t want to sound like a serial killer considering this is what I do on the weekends but--if you come to my apartment I can fix it for you. Shouldn’t take long.”

Leonard was already shocked when it looked like he was seriously considering it, and then he nodded, lifted his chin up in the air as if it made his bloody face any less of a pitiful sight, and said, 

“Lead the way.”

-

Leonard had been meaning to ask him what his name was, but he forgot to once they got in the car. He was a little too preoccupied with rummaging through the glove compartment for fast food napkins and all but ordering the guy to duck his head down between his knees and let the blood drain from his nose before he started choking on it. 

He did as he was told, and didn’t offer any more snark other than, 

“You got an advil hidden in there with all those napkins?”

His voice was high and nasally with all the napkins stuffed in his nose and Leonard just breathed out a laugh as he started driving. 

“Nope. You’re gonna have to wait til we get to my place.”

“You better have a goooood fucking first aid kit at home,” he said, “Otherwise I’m gonna be so mad when you turn out to be a serial killer and I get murdered without even getting a valium first.”

They drove in silence the rest of the way, because Leonard wasn’t sure if turning on the radio was a good idea and he didn’t even want to know what kind of music would be playing at four in the morning. Every once in a while he made sure to glance over at his passenger, sitting quietly with his head between his knees, and tried not to think about how fucking weird this whole thing was. 

He had a stranger in his car, probably dripping blood onto the floor. A stranger whose name he didn’t even know, who he got into a physical fight with just a few weeks ago, and now he was taking this kid  _ to his home _ . It was exactly the kind of thing that would make Jocelyn call her attorney if she found out about it, and make sure that he never saw their daughter again. 

But he was getting ahead of himself. Before anything else, the stranger in his car needed his nose fixed. 

It turned out to be a good distraction from letting his intrusive thoughts spiral into a panic at four in the morning. Leonard led him up to his apartment and ran to the kitchen to hunt down some ibuprofen--because he didn’t know the guy enough to trust him with something like a valium--and once he swallowed those, Leonard checked to see if the bleeding had stopped, and then pushed him in the direction of the shower. 

“You’re covered in blood and dirt,” Leonard said by way of explanation, in response to his eyebrows shooting halfway up his forehead in confusion, “the bar soap is antibacterial. Use it.”

And then he paced around the apartment to the sound of the shower running, trying to convince himself that he hadn’t made a mistake letting a complete stranger in his apartment, a stranger who he met at fight. club. Leonard hoped to god his intuition was still intact and his gut feeling had been right about the guy. 

Not the first gut feeling, which was that he came to club meetings because getting his ass kicked by strangers was his version of self-harm. Or the second one, that made Leonard think he must have been abused when he was younger to give him an irrational fear of hospitals. But the third, which, without really thinking, had made him decide it would be okay to take him home. 

He--speaking of which--was now poking his head out of the bathroom door. Leonard was shocked when they made eye contact, as if he’d forgotten he still had a guest. 

“Did you want me to just come out naked?”

“Oh. Right.”

Leonard went to find him a shirt and some sweatpants. 

When he finally emerged, clean and almost dry, water still darkening his hair and dripping down his neck below the collar of his borrowed t shirt, he looked for a second like he might pass as a normal guy. Except his nose was broken and the uncovered parts of his body were littered with bruises and scrapes and cuts. Leonard tried not to stare any longer, considering this guy probably got stared at everywhere he went, with all those injuries. He directed him towards the living room and started unpacking his first aid kit. Well, it was more of a collection of multiple first aid kits, and extra containers of things which he may or may not have lifted from the hospital, and a very reasonable and responsible home pharmacy, all of which Leonard had been meaning to just build a bookshelf to store it all on. 

“You really are a doctor, aren’t you.”

“I said I’m a doctor, didn’t I?”

“I guess,” he settled into the couch, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged. “Although I’m feeling suspicious now, after you convinced me that my nose was bad enough to go to the ER and then made me stop to take a shower once we got here.”

Leonard just snorted and started sorting through his medical supplies. 

“The advil kick in yet?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, “wouldn’t mind if you gave me something from one of those pill bottles, though.”

“I’m not giving you opioids, I don’t even know you.”

“You know me.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Are we allowed to tell each other our names?”

Leonard closed the distance between them on the couch, nasal speculum in one hand and a roll of gauze in the other, in case he started bleeding again. 

“I only remember being told one rule. Tilt your head back.”

“Well my name is--owww  _ fuck _ , fuck you.” He squeezed his eyes shut, face contorting in pain as Leonard slowly pushed the speculum into his left nostril and leaned forward to check the inside of his nose. 

“They say it hurts less if it’s a surprise,” Leonard offered, “I gotta make sure your septum is still intact.”

“Oh, fuck you. Fuck you and your no-opium-on-the-first-date rule.”

“Quit whining, this’ll only take a second.”

“It’s already been longer than a second.”

“Tell me your name.”

“Jim,” he said, letting out a long breath when Leonard pulled the speculum back out. “Now  _ please _ tell me that thing is not going up the other one.”

“It is,” Leonard said flatly, “and I’m Leonard.”

“God, you’re a sadist,” he babbled as the speculum went up the right nostril, even though Leonard had told him  _ not a minute before _ to quit whining, “no wonder you come to fight club, you’re a fucking sadist.”

“All doctors are sadists.” Leonard breathed a small sigh of relief when he confirmed that Jim’s septum wasn’t bent, which meant the rest of the treatment was going to be as easy as slapping a splint on, handing the kid an ice pack, and sending him home. He pulled the speculum out and watched Jim let out the breath he’d been holding. “It’s no wonder you come to fight club either. You’re a textbook masochist.”

“Oh, are you a psychologist too?”

“I know you meant for that to hurt, but I’ve actually got a PhD in psychology.”

“Fuck,” Jim mumbled, “it’s really hard to make fun of you.”

“I know. It’s because I’m right about everything.”

Leonard turned around to get more from his kit. 

“Your nose isn’t as bad as I thought, actually. You were just bleeding like crazy.”

“How much is this diagnosis gonna cost, doc? Because I don’t have insurance.”

“ _ You don’t have _ \--” Leonard whipped his head around, ready to go into a full-blown lecture, only to see that Jim’s mouth had broken into a very self-satisfied-looking grin underneath his swollen nose. He was leaning into the cushions now with his arm stretched over the back of the couch, looking oddly comfortable considering the situation. Four thirty in the morning, sitting in a stranger’s apartment, wearing someone else’s clothes, and all he seemed to be occupied with was figuring out how to push Leonard’s buttons. Evidently he was a fast learner. 

Leonard sighed and something in Jim’s eyes sparkled. 

“I gotta touch your nose again.”

The sparkle was gone. 

“Don’t worry, this is gonna make it better.”

He had to scoot closer with Jim against the back of the couch like that, on his knees and nearly in his lap while he leaned over to smooth lidocaine cream onto the sides of his nose. 

“Ow.”

“Stop being a child.”

“You’ve got a hell of a bedside manner, I don’t know what I expected when you--” Jim’s face relaxed finally and Leonard figured the numbing effect was starting to kick in. “Ohhh. Okay. I’m done being mad at you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” 

Jim hummed, tension slowly leaving his body, and if Leonard spent a little more time tracing gentle circles with his fingertips as he rubbed the cream onto his nose, that wasn’t important. For some reason he’d just assumed a guy like Jim was always on, always looking for trouble, always walking around with his middle finger up to the rest of the world. He definitely didn’t know him well enough to even make those assumptions, but seeing him so relaxed, in Leonard’s too-loose pajamas, all but smiling and leaning into his touch like a cat, it was just strange. It made something in Leonard’s chest start buzzing. 

“Now hold still so I can put a splint on it.”

It had been years, probably, since he’d treated something as simple as a broken nose, but his hands remembered what to do. He carefully applied strips of medical tape, watching Jim’s face closely for any more signs of pain. He looked like he could have fallen asleep like that, while Leonard taped up his nose, and Leonard wondered how long it had been since someone gave him medical attention. 

The splint went on easy. Leonard patted Jim’s knee before he stood up and the action made Jim’s eyes snap open.

“Where are you going?”

“To get you some ice. And then I’m gonna fix up the rest of your injuries.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Jim called after him. Leonard just rolled his eyes and opened up the freezer for an ice pack. 

“What, you want to keep those?” he asked, walking back to the couch. Jim obediently accepted the ice pack from his hand and placed it over his nose without needing any further instruction, even as he narrowed his eyes at Leonard. “I’m not dumb; I know you’re gonna be back there next week. It’s a wonder you’re not dead already.”

“Thanks,” Jim said, voice muffled by the tape and the splint and the ice pack. “I think.”

“Just sit back. Keep doing what you were doing while I taped your nose. You can fall asleep for all I care.”

Jim didn’t fall asleep, but he did start to look pretty blissed out as Leonard patched him up, starting at his scraped knuckles and moving upwards, putting ointment and bandages on his cuts and scrapes, compressing his bruises. When he got to his shoulders he had Jim lean forward to check his back, which seemed fine from what he could see underneath the collar of his shirt. Then, without really thinking about how or why his fingertips ended up trailing down his back, he found a pretty nasty knot in the muscles underneath Jim’s shoulder blade and started easing the tension out of it with his thumb. Jim breathed in sharply at the touch but didn’t move away.

“Wouldn’t have gotten this kind of attention in the ER,” he gritted out. 

“Just breathe,” Leonard said, “you did this to yourself, you know. Overuse.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He rolled his neck a little--Leonard could see there was probably quite a bit of tension in those muscles, too--and shifted on the couch so Leonard could have better access to his shoulder, inviting him to keep going. Leonard hadn’t thought clearly about it before he was suddenly giving Jim an impromptu massage, but it was like as soon as he finished up stroking the tension out of one spot, he found another. The satisfaction of watching the stress leave Jim’s body was different than just treating any other patient, and somehow better than beating someone up in an alley. 

That’s when it should have gotten weird, but it didn’t. Leonard was pressing his thumbs into the tense spot at the base of Jim’s skull, watching his skin flush underneath his fingertips, hearing his steady, low breathing, and his chest started buzzing like that again. 

“Why do you do it?” he asked softly, and it would have been against his better judgement but his better judgement was apparently nonexistent today. “Every week, I mean, without letting yourself heal. You must be walking around every day looking like you got beat up. Don’t people ask about it?”

“Mmh,” Jim mumbled, “I learned a long time ago that anyone who pays enough attention to me to notice probably still won’t care enough to ask.”

Well that was depressing as fuck. Leonard couldn’t even argue that he knew Jim well enough to defend him, or even believe him, but he still found himself feeling angry at whoever it was, a long time ago, who’d put him in a position to learn something like that. 

“Why did you stop,” Jim asked, voice still low, and Leonard realized his hands had stilled against the back of Jim’s neck. He slid his fingertips down to the spot between his neck and shoulder and started kneading the tension there, even though he’d already done enough necessary work at that spot. 

“Sorry.”

“No, I mean...why did you stop. That time we fought.”

“Oh.”

Leonard didn’t know if he really  _ wanted _ to tell Jim the truth, but the words started tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. 

“After I hit you, you had this look on your face. I know it doesn’t really make a difference but I go to that stupid club because it actually helps my mental health, in a way. The release keeps me sane. And, you know, I shouldn’t be judging anyone else for their own motivations, but I saw that look and I knew that you go there just to get hurt.”

“I don’t see how that’s any more fucked up than your claim that beating up strangers keeps you sane.”

“I know,” Leonard sighed, “but I couldn’t keep going.”

“What if I told you that getting hurt keeps  _ me _ sane?”

“Then I’d tell you that’s bullshit.”

Jim breathed out a laugh. 

“And then I’d say  _ fuck you _ .”

Leonard let out a somewhat exasperated sigh and finally pulled his hands away from Jim’s shoulders, letting his fingertips just barely stay close enough to trail down his back over the soft cotton of his t shirt.  _ Leonard’s _ t shirt, technically. 

“Hey.” Jim turned around to face him, and Leonard was worried he’d done something wrong just then, except Jim looked like as soon as they locked eyes he forgot what he was going to say. He darted his eyes around awkwardly and brought the ice pack back up to his nose. 

“What, Jim.”

“Thanks for patching me up.”

Leonard snorted. “I figured you were gonna keep pretending you didn’t like it.” He studied Jim for a second, and his sudden awkward demeanor like this only started to seem weird to him as soon as Leonard stopped touching him. There was that same raw vulnerability in his expression that Leonard had seen before, when they fought, except this time it only made him want to put his hands on him again, to try to heal all of those places that hurt inside of him. He swallowed hard and stood up, started packing his medical supplies again. 

“You can sleep on the couch, if you want,” Leonard said casually. “Unless you still think I brought you here to kill you.”

“I never thought that.”

Leonard looked up and Jim was back to sitting cross-legged on the couch, looking only slightly uncomfortable still, and he was smiling at him. He looked better with bandages than with bruises, but Leonard still wondered what he would look like with no injury at all, wondered if he would ever find out, or if this was the only version of Jim he’d ever know. 

He wondered if he’d even be able to show up to that alleyway again just to watch Jim have some guy undo all the healing Leonard had just done. 

“There’s some blankets in the ottoman. I’m gonna go to bed, just...come get me if you need anything, okay?”

“I’ll be fine,  _ doctor _ ,” Jim said, still smiling a little, and this time Leonard mostly believed him. 

-

He went in to take a shower himself, turned the water hot enough to fog up the mirror and washed off the stress of the past week. He pointedly avoided any additional thoughts about how weird the entire night--or maybe he should call it the morning--had been. Dawn was finally breaking when Leonard got out of the shower and he caught himself, in between getting dressed and toweling his hair dry, staring out his bedroom window and watching another week start right before his eyes. 

And then he turned to throw his towel in the laundry bin and Jim was there, standing in the doorway. 

What he should have done was ask  _ what’s up? _ or  _ do you need something? _ or  _ is your nose in pain again? _ or, jesus christ, he could have at least started with  _ hi _ . But what he did was--after seeing the insecure, seeking expression on Jim’s face, his posture in the doorway like he wanted to come in but didn’t feel permitted--he sat down on the foot of his bed, reached out his hand towards Jim and said, 

“Come here.”

And Jim came, and sat on the edge of the bed next to him, and Leonard’s hand that had been reaching towards him ended up at the small of his back, feeling the heat of his skin through his t shirt. Jim watched him, carefully, afraid to look away and maybe even more afraid to lean in close, and Leonard saw his face in the early morning light, his big blue eyes and his dirty blond hair and the color in his cheeks, and without needing to actually learn anything more about him Leonard knew that he was young, and smart, and funny, and kind, and beautiful. And he didn’t think of himself as anything more than a punching bag. 

“Are you okay?” Leonard asked, and Jim just watched for a moment more, worried his bottom lip with his teeth. 

“Nobody ever asks me that.”

It wasn’t really an answer, but also it was a pretty clear  _ no _ , except Leonard wasn’t able to ask any follow-up questions because then Jim’s hand was wrapped around the back of his neck and he was pulling him forward and he was kissing him, as carefully as he’d stood in the doorway, like he didn’t know if he was allowed. And because this entire night and morning--and everything, really, since that first time they fought--had been so goddamn weird already, Leonard kissed him back. 

He tried to be careful of Jim’s nose, and the bruises on his arms and torso and the still-healing cut on his cheekbone, every little injury he’d just treated, even as Jim surged forward, desperate, asking for more as soon as Leonard reciprocated. He kissed like he fought, always wanting more, even when he knew it would hurt. When Jim tried to climb over Leonard’s lap he bumped his nose and let out a little hiss of pain, jerking his head back.

“Be careful,” Leonard whispered, a little bit of laughter in his voice. He hooked one finger under Jim’s chin and held him there, halfway over his lap, tilted his own head to the side so he could safely kiss him again. He could feel that Jim wanted to move, to take more, to spread out on top of him as eagerly as he opened up his mouth against Leonard’s, but it was like Leonard was holding him in place with just that one finger, willing him to be patient, and he obeyed. 

Leonard felt a rush of arousal down his body, spreading warm in his stomach, knowing that he alone was able to keep Jim still. 

“You gotta slow down or you’ll hurt yourself,” he said and Jim hummed. He craned his neck to try to deepen the kiss without losing the touch of Leonard’s finger underneath his chin. 

“I don’t care,” he breathed. 

“I do.”

Leonard pulled away, could see the skin around his eyes crinkling like he nearly wanted to smile, so he smiled for the both of them, and slid his hands up Jim’s back. Jim’s arms ended up wrapped around his shoulders and Leonard lifted him up, just a little, so he could move them both up the length of the bed and press Jim carefully into the mattress underneath him, head against the pillows. Something like fear flashed in Jim’s eyes again as he looked up at Leonard above him, and then he grabbed for Leonards shoulders and the back of his neck and pulled him into another kiss. 

“We don’t have to rush this,” Leonard said in between the press of their lips and the slide of Jim’s tongue and the gentle nip of his teeth into his lower lip. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Jim whined in the back of his throat, either from arousal or frustration or a little bit of both, and Leonard decided that maybe they didn’t need to slow down  _ that  _ much. He reached down to palm at his cock just to hear Jim whine like that again. Only a few minutes of kissing and Jim was already achingly hard, tenting the front of his sweatpants. Leonard leaned up on the elbow of his free arm to watch, to see the color rising in Jim’s cheeks and his mouth fall open and his eyebrows knit together as his breaths started to come harsher and higher. He was gorgeous. Even with a splint on his nose and a bruise on his cheekbone and dark circles beneath his eyes. And he was  _ in _ Leonard’s apartment, in his bed, and hard under his hand. Leonard slipped his hand under the waistband of his sweats and Jim actually rolled his hips like it was involuntary, arching his back to press further into Leonard’s hand. 

“God, you’re so desperate for it already,” Leonard mumbled under his breath. Jim visibly flushed darker, down his neck and probably underneath his t shirt, too. “Did it turn you on, when I took care of you?”

Jim shut his eyes and turned his face to the side, and Leonard got the sense that he wasn’t used to so much talking in bed. As much as he wanted to grab Jim’s chin with his hand, get him to open his eyes and look at Leonard and answer the question, he didn’t want to push too far. Seeing Jim blush and squirm at his own words was already more than enough. 

Instead he just leaned forward, pressing his lips to the side of Jim’s neck, right underneath his jaw. 

“It’s okay if it did,” he said against the soft skin, trying to keep a steady rhythm of stroking his cock while he kissed down the line of his neck. “When’s the last time someone’s taken care of you,” Leonard asked next, and just the question made Jim’s breath hitch. 

“Never,” he whispered.

Leonard hummed and traveled further down, kissing his adam’s apple, the curve of his neck, his cheekbone. He nosed the collar of his shirt down to press kisses to the soft, pale skin of his chest. Jim’s next breath cut short again. 

“Wait, I--stop,” he gritted out, and Leonard pushed himself back up on his elbow, pulled his hand out of Jim’s pants, which made Jim snap his eyes open to look at him again, as if he hadn’t just said  _ stop _ . 

“What is it? Did I hurt you?”

“No, I just…” Jim swallowed, darted his eyes down to look at a spot on Leonard’s chest, instead of holding eye contact. “Can you--I want you to--can you fuck me, or something.”

Leonard breathed out a laugh. 

“Or something?”

And Jim looked back up at him through his lashes. 

“Fuck me.”

The words shot straight through Leonard’s ears and down to his cock, and he realized, in that moment, that he had been hard, too, this whole time. 

“Shit, okay.”

Jim smiled up at him, the same smile he had on when he was trying to poke fun at Leonard earlier, and sat up so he could pull his shirt off. Leonard tried not to let the reveal of new bruises on his chest distract him--even though there was a particularly nasty one below his ribcage on the left side--because Jim seemed to have gained a second wind, threw his shirt to the floor and immediately pulled Leonard to him for a deep, biting kiss that almost made him forget how to breathe. 

He ran his fingers through the short, dark hair at Jim’s nape, pulling just a little bit, which only made Jim let out a breathy sort of moan and kiss harder, arching his back and pushing up off the bed to press their bodies together. This was more like the Jim he recognized, the man Leonard had watched fighting in the back of an alley, as opposed to the one who had been sitting on his couch shortly after, smiling and making little sarcastic jokes and leaning into his touch. This Jim was pulling at Leonard eagerly, urging him closer, reaching for his waist and his shoulders and the back of his neck, coaxing his mouth open with his tongue. He kissed like he fought, not in the sense that he was trying to hurt Leonard, but as if he felt like he was running out of time. 

“Be careful,” Leonard warned a second time, “I don’t wanna bump your nose again.”

Jim breathed out a little huff of a laugh and then pulled away from the kiss, gave Leonard a coy smile, quirking one eyebrow, and turned over onto all fours in front of him. It all came off as a little bit rehearsed to Leonard, like this was how he acted with all of his hookups, putting on some cheeky, seductive character. Most people he got with probably didn’t slow down enough to see through it, but Leonard was determined, as soon as he saw the intentional sway of Jim’s hips, the flutter of his eyelashes as he looked back at him over his shoulder, to drive him wild enough that he couldn’t keep up the act, wild enough to get to the real Jim underneath. 

“What are you waiting for?” Jim asked, voice a little bit sultry now, and the words would have gotten to him if Leonard wasn’t imagining them coming out of Jim’s mouth right underneath the big white splint on his broken nose. He chuckled a little bit and moved closer to Jim on his knees, bringing his hands to rest gently against the curve of Jim’s lower back. He let them travel up the length of his spine, over the wiry muscles in his upper back and back down to his waist, feeling the warmth and softness of his skin, charting a few more sore spots and yellowy, fading bruises and a small white scar underneath his ribs. The gentle touch made Jim gasp and then exhale, slowly, and lean back into the touch. Leonard smiled. 

He slid his hands down to the swell of Jim’s ass, and Jim gasped again, quieter this time, and let out a small, breathless, “ _ Yes. _ ”

Leonard didn’t need to be told twice. He was already thinking about how he was going to get more breathless words out of Jim, the ways he was going to touch him to make him gasp and whine and moan and push back into Leonard’s touch again and again. So he reached for the waistband of Jim’s borrowed sweatpants and pulled them down and--

holy shit.

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” he said. 

“Yeah, I know.” Jim might have turned to give him bedroom eyes again but Leonard didn’t even register it, because he was a little preoccupied with Jim’s ass, not because it was _ that  _ amazing--even though it  _ was _ pretty amazing--but because his tailbone was really, seriously bruised. Like, a that’s-probably-broken kind of bruise. There was a big scrape across the surface of his skin, there, too, which spanned halfway across his left cheek, probably from the same fall that had given him the bruise. Leonard wasn’t dumb enough to believe that he’d fallen so bad on  _ accident _ . 

“No I mean,” Leonard paused. He didn’t even know what to say, really, only that sex was the last thing on his mind right now. “I mean--jesus christ, Jim. This looks like it hurts.”

“What--oh. Yeah. It’s like a week old, though. I don’t notice it.”

“The hell you don’t. I know what a broken tailbone looks like.”

“I know, I know, you’re a doctor,” Jim deadpanned, “It’s not like I can put a cast on it.”

“Well...you’re right, you can’t, but--still--”

Jim huffed. Leonard shifted, planning to move off the mattress to go get his first aid kit again, at the very least to disinfect the broken skin and put some ointment on it, but before he could leave Jim flipped over, abruptly, a hand shooting out to grab Leonard’s arm. 

“Don’t,” he said, that seductive edge completely gone, replaced with a small, almost nervous voice. “Don’t, okay, I know it looks bad, but--that won’t make it any better. Just trust me.” He laid back against the mattress again, carefully pulling Leonard with him, guiding him to lay on top of him. And It wasn’t that sultry, fuck-me act Jim had been putting on a few minutes before, but something more tentative, and desperate, and real. And Leonard couldn’t say no to being pulled back to bed. “This will make it better.”

“Okay, Jim,” he said softly, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth, “okay.”

Jim sighed into the kiss, shifted underneath him and relaxed against the mattress, and Leonard was surprised with how quickly they were able to get back on track. He pulled away for just a second. 

“I’m not gonna fuck you tonight. Not when you’re hurt like that. It won’t feel good.”

Jim whined a little at that but he didn’t argue any further, only grabbed Leonard’s face underneath his chin to bring their mouths back together. Leonard liked this better, anyway. He liked all kinds of sex, but especially when he could see his partner like this, see the subtle changes in their facial expression, look into their eyes, connect in more ways than just physical. Maybe it was just his tendency to be a hopeless romantic, but it was one of those things that made sex worthwhile. 

So he watched Jim’s face, looked into his eyes, tried to witness every shift, every time he squeezed his eyes shut or opened them wide, every time his brows knit together or the skin on the sides of his eyes crinkled, every time he smiled and panted and moaned. He watched all of Jim’s walls come down, one after another, as he stroked him, and kissed his face and neck, and whispered into his ear every word he could think of to pull another shaky, breathless moan out of him. It was amazing the way Jim melted under his hands as soon as Leonard gave him just a little bit of praise, and once he figured out how easy it was he found he couldn’t stop. 

Things like  _ I love seeing you here in my bed, _ and  _ I love the sounds you make, _ words like  _ gorgeous _ and  _ beautiful _ and  _ so damn pretty, even with your nose all swollen like that _ , calling him names like  _ sweetheart _ and  _ darlin _ until he slowly fell apart, until tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and Leonard didn’t want to take it too far, kissed the tension between his brows and whispered into the skin there  _ I’ll take care of you _ . Finally Jim came, hard, like it was forced out of him, eyes screwed shut like it hurt, legs scrambling against the bed like he was falling through space, trying to find something to hold onto. 

And Leonard caught him, held him in his arms through the aftershocks, didn’t stop the sweet words that spilled out of his mouth and into Jim’s ear until Jim stopped shaking, and whimpering, and fell asleep. 

-

Leonard woke up hours later, when his apartment was flooded with the warm, pink-orange light of the afternoon, and Jim was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: jim fights in this chapter (with an unnamed stranger from the club), and gets his nose broken. there are multiple references to and descriptions of blood. leonard treats jim's broken nose, at one point using a nasal speculum. there are a few other descriptions of jim's injuries, mostly cuts and bruises  
this chapter also contains implied/referenced abuse in jim's past, including child abuse, and at the mention of going to a hospital jim almost has a panic attack
> 
> ok i think that covers it. writing this all out i'm realizing how dark this fic is IM SORRY


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so aisha was the world's best cheerleader today and helped me finally finish this thing. just felt like i needed to add ANOTHER shoutout even though i mentioned her in chapter 1  
sorry for the wait you guys!! i hope this chapter is all you wanted and more
> 
> no cw for this one because it doesn't contain any violence or injury, only some dom/sub sex and some sweetness :^)

And because he was a god damn fool, Leonard ended up at that fucking alley behind the boxing gym--waiting at the entrance where it met the sidewalk--every single Sunday morning after that. He knew he was acting like a crazy person, even after the first week he did it. 

Not because he  _ missed _ him or anything. Because he was about ready to give that fucker a piece of his mind. During the first two weeks, the lecture he had planned was more centered around  _ I just fixed you up and you’re looking to get hurt again after all the work I did on your pretty face? Are you out of your goddamn mind?  _ but then another two weeks passed, and Leonard knew that his nose would probably be fine by now, if he wasn’t fighting. His other injuries, too, and maybe even the bruising on his tailbone will have cleared up. Which meant he had no excuse to be mad at Jim for any reason other than the fact that he disappeared after they had sex. 

It wasn’t like Leonard was unaccustomed to that kind of thing happening after one-night stands, hell, he’d been the one to cut out early himself on a few occasions, but never without saying goodbye, and never when the sex had been so personal like that. And intimate. And real. Leonard could tell from the tone of his voice and the nervous energy in his eyes that Jim had told him things that night that he’d never told anyone, showed a side of himself that his typical hookups never got to see, and then he up and left as if that whole night they spent together didn’t mean shit. No goodbye. No nothing. 

Leonard had no choice but to accept that he was mad about it, that he’d went and let his feelings get hurt by someone he met at a fight club, of all places, and that he was now acting like a crazy, desperate, possessive bastard. 

He had almost convinced himself to give up on the fifth week in a row--which was more than a month after they’d had sex that  _ one _ time--while he waited at the edge of the alleyway, watching people slowly make their way towards the back where the fighting had probably already started by now. He really was being crazy. There was no denying it. And he needed to just let Jim go, find a new hobby, and move on. And maybe start seeing a therapist. 

Then, Jim showed up. 

There was something...different about him. He was standing on the sidewalk, frozen, and just  _ staring _ back at Leonard, eyes wide like he never thought he’d see him here. Like they hadn’t  _ met in this fucking alley in the first place _ . Leonard realized after a few seconds what was different--he was uninjured. The splint was gone from his nose, along with a set of black eyes that Leonard had expected to see the morning after (if Jim had stuck around). Leonard was sure that, close up, there were probably small, white scars across his skin from all the times he’d left this street covered in cuts and scrapes, but underneath the flickering street light his face looked clear and smooth and slack from shock. 

He would have thought that a few seconds later the shock would be replaced with some sort of cocky grin, Jim would swagger over, hands in his pockets, close the distance between them and cover up whatever real emotion he felt with another seduction routine. Instead Jim stared at him for a little while longer, and then he just looked mad. 

At the very least, it seemed genuine. 

He took a few steps closer but his body language was all closed off in the slump of his shoulders and the crease between his eyebrows and the hard line of his mouth. He really didn’t look like he was going to be the first person to say something. So Leonard went first.

“Where have you been?” 

Jim scoffed, staring down the line of the alley so they didn’t have to keep looking at each other. They listened for a moment to the sounds coming from the other end, the grunting and the cheering and the taunting. He could see that Jim wanted to be over there, instead, fighting with his hands and pretending Leonard was just some stranger in the crowd, and it almost made him reach out and grab Jim by the arm and keep him there. 

“Why do you care?” he spat out, and it looked like he was going to leave it there and walk off but he turned back to Leonard a beat later. “Have you been waiting for me to show up this whole time? That’s really creepy, you know. Like possessive and creepy. We hooked up  _ once _ .”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t tell me that was _ just a hookup _ .”

Jim crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging a little bit. 

“Sure it was.”

“You cry during all your hookups?”

“I didn’t cry,” Jim muttered. 

“ _ Sure you didn’t _ ,” Leonard threw his own words back at him. 

“Fine. Can we just forget about that? Or maybe forget about all of it?” Jim gestured his head towards the alley. “As long as you don’t spend the whole time staring at me it’ll be like it never happened.”

“I don’t wanna stare at you while you fight.”

“Great. So we’re on the same page. Let’s go.”

“I don’t wanna  _ see _ you fight at  _ all _ .”

He laughed once, loud enough to be heard down the whole block, and Leonard felt his hands clenching into fists at his sides. Jim stepped even closer, lowering his voice this time, and his words came out quiet and sharp and almost condescending with the way he smiled around them. 

“You think you’re the first person who’s ever told me this, don’t you? You think you’re the first one to realize that I’m hurting myself and tell me with that serious look on your face as if I don’t already know? You don’t know shit. You don’t know what’s good for me.”

“I never said I did.”

“Oh bull- _ shit _ . I know you came here to lecture me. To tell me how much I’m misbehaving and then take me home and fuck me like you think your dick is gonna make everything better. I’ve heard it before, okay. I’ve done it before. Just go find some other broken kid to take to bed.”

The corner of his mouth curled up a little bit, like he was satisfied with himself for that lecture he’d just delivered. The lecture about how Leonard shouldn’t lecture him. He let out a breath and let his shoulders drop and moved like he was going to walk off, for good this time, and Leonard’s hand shot out and grabbed him at the elbow, pulled him right back. 

“You don’t know me, either,” Leonard said sharply. Jim just stared at him, eyes wide, and Leonard realized that his arm on Jim’s elbow was the first time he’d touched him since--well. Since before Leonard woke up to an empty bed. Leonard tried to exhale the anger out, cleared his head, and started over. 

“I didn’t come here to lecture you. I’m not stupid enough to think that my words alone are gonna make you stop tryin to kill yourself every week. And I don’t know how you got this in your head but it does not  _ turn me on _ to make you feel even more shitty than you already do.”

Jim blinked at him. 

“So why are you here.”

“Because I wanted to see you.”

Jim laughed again, and it was strained and sad and not really much of a laugh at all. 

“Good one.”

“I mean it. I came here because I wanted to see you. Because I’d wanted to see you next to me in bed that morning when I woke up, and you weren’t there.” Leonard urged him just a little bit closer with the hand on his elbow, until their faces were just inches apart, and looked him right in the eyes. “Is that so hard for you to believe?”

“Uhh ...yeah,” Jim said, like it was obvious. “People don’t usually want me around when they wake up.”

“Well I do.” Leonard’s other hand found the curve between his neck and shoulder, fingertips tracing the skin underneath the short hair at his nape. He felt Jim shiver, just a little bit, no doubt remembering the gentle massage he’d given him there. “I want you. In my bed tonight. And I think you want that, too.”

Jim shivered again, closing his eyes. His forehead wrinkled like couldn’t figure out what to say--or what he wanted in the first place. Leonard gave him time, slowly tracing his thumb over the line of Jim’s neck, where the skin was soft and vulnerable, where he tried as best as he could to be gentle, and nice, unlike all the hands which had been around that neck before him. 

“You can’t give me what I need,” Jim finally said. He opened his eyes, cautiously, deliberately. 

“Can’t I?” Leonard asked, tilting his head to the side, “I saw that look in your eyes when we fought. You never looked at anyone like that, and I know, because I always watched you. And then I saw it again when I took you home. When you sat on my couch, and later when I had you in my bed. I think I bring it out in you, whatever it is, because you _ know _ I can give you what you need.”

Jim sighed through his nose, looking down at the little patch of ground between their feet. 

“I don’t want you because you’re broken, you know. That’s not why I’m into you.”

He waited to see how Jim was going to deflect that next, if he was going to let out some self-deprecating laugh, or insult himself, or insult Leonard, or who knows what else. But Jim didn’t say anything. Just when Leonard was about to try to break the silence, maybe suggest that the two of them ought to try this again when they’ve both had a full night’s sleep, Jim reached for the hand that rested on the back of his neck and pulled it away. 

He held it in his own just for a second, carefully, and Leonard realized it was the first time  _ Jim _ had touched him since that night five weeks ago. His gaze traveled back up from the ground and met Leonard’s eyes again, and he could see, in the openness and the gentleness and the vulnerability of his expression, that he didn’t have any more arguments left in him. 

And then he surged forward, closed that final distance between the two of them, took Leonard’s face in both of his hands and brought their mouths together and kissed him like this was what he’d wanted all along, like this was the only reason he came back to this godforsaken alley in the small hours of a Sunday morning, just for  _ this _ . 

“Take me home,” Jim said when he broke the kiss again, low and desperate against the corner of his mouth, and Leonard didn’t need to be told twice. 

-

The car was silent just like that first time while he drove Jim to his apartment, but for a completely different reason. Jim spent the entire ride sitting upright, twisting his hands together in his lap and staring out the window at the empty street as if he was seconds away from backing out. But he didn’t back out during the ride there, and he didn’t back out when Leonard led him into the building, up the stairs, down the hall to his apartment. And then when the door shut behind the two of them Jim seemed to make up his mind. 

Well, he at least made up his mind about one thing, which was that he needed Leonard  _ now _ , right now. There was apparently no time for them to even leave the doorway, but Leonard could get on board with that. The little sound that escaped Jim’s mouth as soon as he crowded him against the door burned all the way down Leonard’s spine to the pit of his stomach. 

So they were just going to make out against the door, then. Neither of them seemed to have a better idea. Until, 

“I know what you want,” Leonard said, and leaned in for another biting kiss, keeping Jim trapped against the door just with one hand at his hip and the other around the back of his neck, guiding Jim into exactly the position for their mouths to come together. Jim had immediately complied, and stayed still. Leonard knew that he would. “I know what you need. I know why you fight.”

Jim huffed out a laugh, even as he waited patiently for another kiss. But Leonard held back, tilting his head away just slightly, and watched something like a pout pass over Jim’s facial expression before it was gone and he narrowed his eyes. 

“Fine, then. Tell me. Since you think you’ve got it all figured out.”

“Oh, I’m  _ sure _ I have it figured out. But I’m not going to tell you.”

And with that Leonard released him, stepped back and went over to the couch. A small noise of protest came from somewhere in the back of Jim’s throat and he stared, half-angry and half-shocked, as Leonard settled against the cushions, crossed one leg over the other and let his arm rest across the back of the couch. “You’re going to tell me.”

Jim scoffed. 

“Come here,” Leonard said, to a surprisingly unsure-looking Jim who was still standing at the door. He could see that Jim was already turned on, tenting the front of his jeans, blush running up his neck, and they’d only just started. 

Of course Jim was still going to be as difficult as possible, wasn’t he. He marched into the living room and crossed his arms over his chest, looking past his nose at Leonard where he sat on the couch. 

“Can’t we just have normal sex?”

“That’s not why you came here.”

Jim sighed, and the flush that covered his neck rose higher, to the sides of his cheeks. His eyes 

suddenly found the armrest of the couch exponentially more interesting than Leonard in the center of it. 

“You came here because I promised that I can give you what you need, and you decided to trust me, and now I’m going to deliver.”

“Sounds kinda like you want me to be doing most of the work,” Jim said to the armrest.

Leonard breathed out a laugh, and the sound of it made Jim glance back at him for a second, apparently, before he hastily looked away again, crossing his arms even tighter. 

“Don’t worry,” Leonard said casually, “you’re not going to forget who’s in charge here.”

He watched Jim’s breath catch in his throat at that, saw his chest and his shoulders tense up from the unfinished breath. 

“That’s it, isn’t it? You want me to be in charge? You want me to give you what you need?”

Jim still refused to meet Leonard’s eyes but he nodded once. 

“I want that too, Jim, but you need to do what I ask. Do you understand?”

Jim nodded again. 

“Use your words.”

“Yes, you absolute cock-tease, I understand.”

It was really, really hard not to laugh out loud at that. Instead Leonard just dragged a hand down his face, gave Jim a few seconds to wonder if he was going to get in trouble for that. Wondered for himself if Jim said it precisely  _ because _ he thought he’d get in trouble. 

“I want you to tell me why you fight.”

Jim sighed. His shoulders slumped a little, arms loosening where they crossed over his chest.

“Because I like it, okay.”

“Look at me when you speak. And give me a better answer.”

Leonard watched as Jim ran a hand through his hair nervously, wrapped his arms tighter around himself and finally peeled his gaze away from staring at the armrest to look right into Leonard’s eyes.

“It’s all I know how to do.”

A better answer, probably, but Leonard still wasn’t satisfied. 

“Try again,” he said. Jim got just a fraction more uncomfortable. Leonard could sense how much he wanted to look away, or even run away, back to the alley where he could numb himself to everything except the feelings of someone else’s knuckles against his flesh. But he stayed. He stayed, and he tried again. Because deep down, Leonard knew that he wanted to. 

“It helps me forget.”

“About what?”

“About everything,” Jim said, quiet enough to be a whisper if Leonard wasn’t paying such close attention to his voice, his face, his body language as he slowly started to unravel. “When I fight it’s like everything in my head shuts off except that part of me that tells me to fight back so it doesn’t end. And sometimes if the fight is really good it’ll be like that for hours after. I just stop thinking.” Jim swallowed hard. “And I just feel things.”

Leonard thought about what he’d said for a moment. He’d already figured as much, of course. Ever since he’d pinpointed Jim’s fight club attendance to an extremely public and kind of extravagant form of self-harm. It was still self-harm all the same. It was his escape. 

“What do you want to feel,” Leonard asked next. Jim squirmed. 

“I don’t know.”

“You do.”

“I don’t know, okay? It’s not that simple.”

“Do you want to feel pain?”

Jim shrugged a little bit, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder. Leonard could tell that he wasn’t used to anything like this. People probably made their own assumptions about what Jim wanted without asking even half as many questions, and Jim went along with it every time, no doubt, in the hopes of getting just a little bit of what he needed by coincidence. 

“Not exactly,” Jim mumbled, “I mean it’s not about feeling  _ pain, _ it’s just about feeling  _ something _ .” He was getting better at holding eye contact, even though his posture was still far from relaxed. “Can I be done with the interrogation now?”

Leonard smiled. 

“No. But you can have a break. Take your clothes off.”

Jim looked almost relieved, a little bit of a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth, and he immediately pulled his shirt over his head, baring his chest to Leonard and fluffing his hair and smiling fully once it was off. He let it fall to the ground and reached for his belt next. Leonard watched every piece of clothing come off, felt another surge of want to see him without scrapes or bruises like the last time. If it weren’t for a few fading scars--probably a result of never seeking medical attention--his body would look untouched. And Leonard wanted to be the one to drag his hands across Jim’s skin, to rewrite the history of all of the hands that didn’t touch him right before. 

When he was fully naked, and gorgeous and flushed and still mostly hard, he moved like he was going to join Leonard on the couch. Leonard held his hand up. 

“I didn’t tell you to come closer. I still have one question for you.”

Jim stopped in his tracks, let out a slow exhale, and went back to where he was standing before. 

“Alright. Shoot.”

Leonard just watched him for a few seconds more, watched him squirm under the direct attention, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides like he was fighting the urge to cover himself. He let his eyes travel up Jim’s body one more time, before he asked, 

“What do you want me to do to you?”

Jim’s blush turned about four shades darker, spreading down to his chest and stomach. He licked his lips nervously. 

“I want you to...make me feel something, I guess,” Jim said quietly, looking down at the neckline of Leonard’s shirt, now, instead of his eyes. 

“Something?” Leonard repeated, “Anything? You’re gonna have to be more specific than that, darlin. Do you want it to hurt?”

“I…” Jim trailed off. Leonard saw the moment he started to really have trouble, as opposed to being difficult just for the sake of it. “I don’t know.”

“What did I make you feel last time,” Leonard said, trying to keep Jim grounded in something he  _ did _ have an answer to, “when I took care of you. Do you remember how you felt?”

“Not really I--I wasn’t thinking, you know. I just let it happen. I let you do it because it felt good and I didn’t have to think about it.”

“And you liked it?”

Jim shifted uncomfortably, and Leonard could see how hard he was, now, desperately so, his cock jutting out proudly amid all of his embarrassment. He liked it. And he liked this, too. Even though it was just on the edge of too much for him to handle. Leonard was starting to understand. 

“I did,” Jim breathed. 

“Do you want that again?”

Jim nodded once before he stopped himself. 

“What is it?” Leonard asked, and quickly added, “Let me see your eyes, darlin.”

He seemed to like the pet name, too, or the orders. Or both. Jim quickly obeyed, even if he looked just that much more embarrassed when he had to make eye contact with Leonard, on top of sharing so much vulnerability. 

“I mean,” Jim huffed out a small, strained laugh, “you can’t really take care of me if I’m not injured, right.”

“Sure I can.”

Jim stared back at Leonard, clearly not buying it. 

“Come here,” Leonard finally said, gesturing to his lap. Jim seemed more tentative, this time, as he stepped forward and settled over Leonard on the couch, straddling his lap and letting his hands rest on Leonard’s shoulders.

“Here’s what I can do,” he started. He brought his hands to rest on Jim’s waist, feeling the goosebumps that covered his skin. “There won’t be any pain tonight. I’m not going to hurt you just so I can patch you up after. Not that something like that would be completely off the table.”

He felt Jim shiver, just slightly, under his hands. 

“But not tonight,” he said, voice low. “But I can still make it intense for you. Give you more than you think you’ll be able to handle. And then after I’ve fucked you so hard you’ve forgot how to think, I’ll take care of you like I did before.”

Jim shivered again, bit at his bottom lip, looked away nervously at a spot on the wall next to Leonard’s head. He brought a hand to Jim’s chin and guided it back, urging his eyes back too. 

“Do you want me to do that?”

“Yes,” he breathed. 

“Are you sure?”

Jim nodded eagerly, pupils wide as he looked into Leonard’s eyes. Leonard let his fingertips travel over the planes of his face, thumb sliding along the line of his cheekbone, palm curving along his jaw. Jim ever-so-subtly leaned into the touch. 

“Do you have a safeword?”

“I think your ‘ _ last question _ ’ for me was like, three questions ago.”

“This is important,” Leonard said, and punctuated it by letting his hand that still rested on Jim’s waist wrap around to the small of his back, pulling him closer. Jim’s breath caught just slightly at the friction against his cock as their bodies pressed closer. 

“I need to make sure I don’t go too far,” he continued. “Do you have one?”

“I don’t--I don’t think so.” Leonard’s hand settled on the curve of Jim’s ass, encouraging him to roll his hips forward, seek that drag of friction against Leonard’s stomach. He knew it was a little bit cruel, letting Jim get overwhelmed before they’d finished talking about this, but he couldn’t resist seeing him so desperate and eager and aroused already. 

“I don’t think anyone has made me come up with one before,” he said, breathless. 

“It really  _ is _ a wonder you’re not dead.”

“Stop saying that.”

Leonard exhaled in a little bit of a laugh and leaned forward to kiss the softness of Jim’s neck, once, before pulling away again. 

“You should have one. Something you wouldn’t blurt out in the heat of the moment, but also something you won’t forget.”

“Nose splint,” Jim said. 

“Absolutely not.”

Jim wiggled his eyebrows up and down, and Leonard couldn’t really stop himself from kissing him again, this time on his stupid, perfect nose. He must have taken pretty good care of himself while he was taking time off from fighting. It looked just like it had before. 

“What’s yours?”

“Georgia.”

“Georgia,” Jim repeated, trying to imitate his southern drawl, too. He smiled. “That’s where you’re from, then, isn’t it?”

“Mhm.”

“Then my word can be Iowa. That’s where I’m from.”

“Okay. You gonna remember that?”

Jim thought about it.

“Probably.”

“Okay.” 

Leonard pulled Jim forward by the hand on his cheek and kissed him for real this time. He felt the tension slowly leave Jim’s body after how much it had been building through their conversation, felt the heat under his skin, the urgent, restless energy in his body as he pulled at Leonard’s shirt.

“Why are you in such a hurry all the time?” Leonard asked, deliberately trying to reclaim control of the kiss, to steer them towards something more slow and deep and sensual. Jim sighed into his mouth, posture relaxing even more, and then he pulled away as if he didn’t so clearly enjoy where things were going. 

“Didn’t you say something about giving me more than I can handle?”

“Don’t worry, darlin, we’ll get to that soon enough.”

-

“Fuck….I can’t--”

“Yes you can. Reach out and hold onto the bed frame if you need to.”

Leonard watched, casually reclining on the other side of the bed, while Jim’s free hand reached clumsily in front of him for the headboard. His other hand was busy, of course, while he stretched himself open on three fingers. The support of the headboard only offered a little bit of relief, his posture was still strained and tight as he tried to reach one hand behind himself. Sweat rolled down the wiry muscles of his arms, his back, his shaking thighs after so long spent on his knees. His face and neck were turning pink again, partially from the activity, but Leonard could guess that the flush was mostly a result of the less-than-dignified position Leonard had ordered him into, and the silk blindfold around his eyes that prevented him from any self-adjustment. 

Still, he was doing a good job.

“Good job,” Leonard murmured, watching him slowly pick up his rhythm again, holding tight to the headboard as he rocked back on his fingers a little. “That’s it. Good job.”

“This is so much...” Jim panted. “You’re making me do so much...work.”

Leonard breathed out a laugh. 

“Do you want me to tie your mouth, next?”

Jim groaned a little bit, either from the idea or from the fact that Leonard had just confirmed he wasn’t going to ease up yet on making Jim do this himself. His head fell back between his shoulders. 

“No,” he gritted out, “I’ll be good.”

“You already are,” Leonard said, and Jim let out a little huff of laughter, his open mouth turning into something of a smile.

“Sure.”

Leonard went quiet for a moment, took in the sight of Jim twisting his arm just a bit more, just enough to push his fingers in deeper. He saw the exact second where Jim’s fingertips must have brushed against his prostate, when the smile disappeared on a surprised little gasp and forehead wrinkled and he tried, again and again, to find that spot once more. 

“You  _ are _ good for me, you know. Although, I think you want to be good all the time.”

Jim apparently couldn’t find the energy necessary to retort, he was too busy trying not to lose balance while sparks of pleasure seemed to course through him. Leonard figured it was the perfect time to tell him  _ exactly _ how good he was. 

“I think you’re good,” Leonard said, low and almost a bit breathless himself. He couldn’t resist stroking his own cock at the sight of Jim desperately fucking himself right next to him in bed. He let his own arousal build steadily, nowhere near as urgent as Jim. But then again, he knew what was coming next, and Jim didn’t. “I’ve watched you fight, you know. Dozens of times. And not  _ once _ have I seen you really hurt someone. I think everyone must be too distracted by your pretty face to notice.”

That made Jim whine quietly in the back of his throat, or maybe he’d coaxed that reaction out of himself all on his own. Either way, Leonard continued. 

“You try to be bad, but I can see your heart for what it is. I know you’re kind, and honest, and smart.”

“Stop….complimenting me…” Jim breathed. His face was tight and set with determination as he pulled his three fingers out, slowly, and added a fourth. 

“Good. That’s good,” Leonard mumbled without even thinking about it. And then, “What? You don’t want to hear what I have to say?”

Jim huffed, clearly leaning more towards discomfort than pleasure as he tried to ease the stretch of four fingers. His brow knit together under the blindfold. 

“Stop--complimenting me--and fuck me already.”

Leonard thought about that. He really did, while he continued to stroke himself slowly. He thought about how good it was going to feel to finally have Jim’s body under his hands, to watch him go boneless as he fucked him into the mattress, to hear the sounds he was going to make, louder, probably, with the blindfold on to hide him from his own shame. That could wait, though. They had time. 

“Not yet, darlin. I think I want to watch you for a little longer.”

Jim whined, clearer this time, but he didn’t stop the slowly building rhythm of his fingers into his ass. He really was being so good. 

“And I want to compliment you a little more, I think.”

He whined again, although it was more of a whine of dread than anything else.

“I know. If you could see what you look like right now, though, you’d understand. How perfect you look when you follow my orders, showing me exactly how bad you want it--”

“Then give it to me,” Jim snapped, but there was no bite to it when the next second he was gasping, like he’d found his prostate again on accident, his legs shaking and threatening to give out this time. 

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I would gag you.”

Jim’s knuckles were white where he held onto the headboard. 

“I don’t want to have to do that, though, because then I’d get to see even less of that perfect face.”

Another little gasp, and Jim was biting his bottom lip, holding back a moan or maybe even another demand that Leonard stop complimenting him. It only served as encouragement. 

“Don’t act like you don’t want to hear me say how pretty you are. You think I don’t notice? How perfect you look now that everything’s healed? When I first saw you tonight I almost forgot everything I was mad about. That’s how perfect you look right now, just for me.”

That last part might’ve been a bit much, but then Jim’s hard-set expression finally broke and his breaths started coming heavier and louder and his fingers lost rhythm, and he took a deep, shaking breath and just said, 

“ _ Please-- _ ”

And then it really looked like he was going to fall over, like he was seconds away from completely unraveling, inside and out. 

“ _ Please _ \--I need--”

Leonard almost felt a little bit guilty. He pushed himself up to his knees and crossed the distance between them on the bed, and Jim must have been too far gone to even feel the mattress shifting and know that Leonard was coming, because he nearly sobbed when Leonard’s hands were on him, easing him out of his tricky position and settling behind him, pulling his hips up and pressing his chest and shoulders gently into the mattress. 

“God...yes,  _ yes _ \--just--”

He didn’t waste any time checking to make sure Jim was ready--he’d made him spend long enough preparing himself, maybe too long--instead grabbing his waist to line up their bodies, and slowly guiding Jim back onto his cock. Jim sighed like he’d been holding his breath the entire time, his whole body relaxing underneath Leonard. 

“Perfect,” he felt himself saying as he pushed into that tight, incredible heat, that body he’d spent so much time admiring. “You’re so perfect for me,” he said again, right as he was buried completely inside of him. Jim just let his next breath break off into a moan, low and long and desperate. 

Leonard didn’t stop the words that came out next, as he fucked him hard and deep until his hands couldn’t even grasp at the sheets anymore and all he could do was lay there, face against the pillows, and breathe and moan and gasp at every thrust of Leonard’s hips and every word that tumbled out of his mouth, every  _ so good _ and  _ so perfect _ and  _ beautiful _ and  _ unbelievable _ . Jim was unraveling faster and faster, and Leonard had to keep his hands tight around his hips to stop the desperate way he tried to jerk back to meet his thrusts. Eventually he just leaned forward, draping his body across Jim’s back to try and steady him. 

Except he brought his face close to Jim’s where it was turned to the side against the bed and all he heard was a small, quiet little whisper of, “No….no….no--” and he stilled inside of him. 

“No? Do you want me to stop, sweetheart?”

“No--don’t stop--” Jim said, voice rough and shaky. He pressed his face into the pillow and Leonard brought his hand to the back of his neck, to the sweat-darkened hair there, and urged him to turn his head again. “Don’t stop,” Jim clarified, “just--you keep talking--it’s too much. It’s too much.”

“Okay.” Leonard kissed the space between his shoulder blades as he straightened up again and Jim sighed quietly. While he moved, though, he caught something in his peripheral vision, looked to the side and realized he’d left the closet door open when he went in for the blindfold. 

And the mirror on the inside of the door was facing the bed almost perfectly. He could see Jim spread out underneath him, grasping at the sheets, face and neck and shoulders flushed, cock heavy and neglected between his legs. He was about to go right back into fucking him, watching the sight of it from the mirror this time, when he got an even better idea. 

He leaned down again, this time to wrap an arm around Jim’s chest and coax his body upright. 

“Come here,” Leonard said softly, trying to maneuver them around the bed to face the mirror a little better. Once he was satisfied with Jim on his knees in front of him, still impaled on his cock, arching his back as Leonard held him against his chest, all of this perfectly reflected in the mirror, he leaned in close to Jim’s ear. “I’ll stop talking,” he said, “If I can show you, instead, how perfect you are.”

Jim swallowed hard. 

Leonard pulled the blindfold off with his free hand. Jim blinked and squinted in the light for a moment, and Leonard watched in his reflection as his eyes looked around the room before finally settling on the two of them in the mirror--on himself. He immediately blushed a few shades darker. 

“I can’t,” he said in a small voice. 

“Yes you can.” Leonard’s arm around his chest pulled tighter, and he nosed along the line of Jim’s neck. “You’re going to watch yourself while I make you come.”

Jim keened, reaching back to steady himself with a hand on Leonard’s flank, the other one reaching clumsily until Leonard took it in his own, wrapping both of their hands around Jim’s cock. 

“Watch,” Leonard ordered, and started fucking him again in earnest. 

There were a few more moments when Jim tried to look away, or close his eyes, or tilt his head back and try to kiss Leonard instead, all to avoid having to watch himself in the mirror. Every time Leonard manually turned his head back, leaving Jim’s hand urgently stroking his own cock while Leonard thrust into him. The angle wasn’t as good like this, and the rhythm was hard to keep, but the look on Jim’s face in the mirror--as he struggled to obey Leonard’s order to watch-- _ more _ than made up for it. 

He could see when Jim finally gave in, staring down his own reflection through half-lidded eyes, could see the way it only served to turn him on  _ more _ , turning his cheeks redder and pulling long, desperate sounds from his throat like it was involuntary. Leonard tried his best to keep his thrusts in the right rhythm as he watched Jim get closer and closer to his orgasm, and leaned in close to Jim’s ear.

“See?” he asked in a whisper, and Jim whimpered just from the sound of his voice. “Do you see how good you look? How good you’re being for me?”

Jim choked on his next breath and he came, with his eyes screwed shut and his face contorted in pleasure and shame, his head falling back against Leonard’s shoulder as he painted his chest and stomach with his release. 

Leonard had to pull out after that, before the two of them actually fell off the bed, and Jim looked barely even conscious but he whined in protest and grabbed at Leonard until they collapsed back into the mattress and Leonard slipped into him again like he’d never left. 

He pressed his face into the curve of Jim’s neck, listening to his every sigh and moan and the little hitches in his breath as he chased his own orgasm. And then he really did collapse, the aftershocks leaving him so dazed it took all the energy he had left to lift his head up and kiss the side of Jim’s tear-streaked cheek. 

“You were perfect,” he whispered, and all Jim could do was sigh as another tear made its way down his face. 

-

Jim took a long time to come down, and even though they were sticky and gross and he might have pulled a muscle, Leonard made sure to be there with him the entire time. They spent nearly a half hour just laying where they’d collapsed in the afterglow, both of them tangled up lengthways on the bed. Leonard watched Jim’s face carefully, mapping out the line of his nose, his cheeks, his jaw, with his fingertips, brushing the hair away from his forehead in easy, repetitive strokes, swiping away the last of his tears with his thumb. He watched as the very last traces of tension seemed to leave him, and this was when Jim really, truly looked like he wasn’t injured anywhere--maybe like he never had been--when that wrinkle between his eyebrows smoothed out, when the hard set of his jaw relaxed, when the tension around his eyes was gone. 

It made something warm and glowing settle in Leonard’s chest. Something that threatened to spill over and come out of his mouth in irresponsible, too-much-too-soon kind of words. Maybe not so different from all of the things he’d said during sex--but that was sex; that was the scene. Now it was different. 

So Leonard didn’t say anything while he laid there with Jim. 

They were both silent when he finally helped Jim up to a seat, and then out of bed and towards the bathroom. 

Leonard turned on the shower, keeping one hand under the water until the temperature was right, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Jim studying himself in the mirror, rubbing his puffy eyes and his still-pink cheeks. All he had to do was hold his other hand out, and Jim followed him into the shower. 

They were silent while Leonard washed Jim’s hair, while Jim spent a little longer than necessary running the bar of soap over Leonard’s chest and stomach, when they stepped out and dried each other off as if it was routine. Leonard fluffed the towel over Jim’s hair, too lazy to get the hair dryer but insistent on not getting the pillows wet, and he could see the bottom half of Jim’s face slowly break out into a smile. When he pulled the towel away to reveal a mostly dry, fluffy-haired Jim, they caught eyes for a second, and that warmth in Leonard’s chest started creeping back, and Jim just said, 

“Thank you.”

Leonard didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say a lot of things, to thank  _ Jim _ , for starters, but he didn’t know if any of them were appropriate. He didn’t know  _ what _ they were doing here, anymore. All he knew was that Jim was clean and warm and his face looked pink and healthy and perfect and he was looking at Leonard with his big light eyes like he might have just hung the moon. So he didn’t let himself speak. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Jim’s mouth, firm and quick, and led him back to the bedroom. 

-

He’d assumed he didn’t have to say  _ out loud  _ that he expected Jim to stay the night this time, and after what started happening to him while they were standing there in the bathroom, he was worried about the tone of voice which that sentence would have come out in. 

Still, Jim followed him to bed, settled beside him under the covers, reached for one of Leonard’s arms and pulled it to drape across his side. Leonard let his palm splay out across Jim’s stomach, surprisingly soft considering the lean muscle that seemed to cover the rest of his body, and pulled him just a little bit closer, and when Jim didn’t move away, he figured it didn’t need to be said. 

And then when he was just about to fall asleep he felt a shift in the mattress, not enough for Jim to have rolled out of his grip yet, but almost. He panicked. His arm around Jim’s middle turned to steel, and at the resounding yelp of shock from Jim, he decided it was safe to say,

“If you try to leave after that I’m gonna take that lamp on the bedside table and knock you out cold.”

Jim’s body immediately relaxed again. 

“I was just moving around,” he said quietly, with just a hint of attitude, and moved again, this time even closer, until the line of his back pressed against Leonard’s chest. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he whispered. 

Leonard smiled against Jim’s shoulder. He let that warm glow in his chest carry him all the way to sleep.

_end. _


End file.
